nd only fought against the
Caribs; they were peaceable, kind, and gentle, so hospitable to
strangers that Columbus could hardly say enough in their favour. "A
better race there cannot be," he declared to his sovereigns, and this
opinion was confirmed by all who came into contact with them. In fact if
you do nothing to offend him, the Arawak of to-day is the same quiet and
gentle fellow who met the voyagers on their arrival at Guanahani.

The Caribs were a stronger race, and had probably followed the same
track as the Arawaks in a later migration. At the time of the discovery
they appear to have driven the more gentle race from the smaller islands
south of Porto Rico, and had taken their women as wives. All along the
coast the two tribes fought with each other, but on account of the
greater stretch of country there was nothing like the extermination
which took place in the Lesser Antilles. The Arawaks retired up the
rivers and creeks, leaving their enemies to take possession of the
coast, which they did to such good purpose that the Spaniards were
unable to get a footing in Guiana. All the early writers agree that the
Caribs were man-eaters--in fact the word cannibal seems to have been
derived from their name. In the smaller islands they had eaten all the
men of the gentler tribe, and now made periodical raids on the larger,
from whence they carried off prisoners to be cooked and devoured at
leisure. These raids led to combinations on the part of the inhabitants
of Haiti and Porto Rico, and hitherto they had been successful in
preventing anything like an occupation of these islands by their
enemies. Whether these successes would have continued is doubtful; the
arrival of the Spaniards upset everything.

The Carib was not so entirely dependent on the produce of the soil as
the meal-eater. He was a hunter and fisherman, but above everything else
a warrior. His women had provision grounds like those of the Arawak,
possibly because they came from that stock. The Carib's hunting grounds
were circumscribed and poor, and his craving for meat could only be
appeased in one way--by eating his enemies. Probably this made him all
the more fierce and bloodthirsty, as a flesh diet is certainly more
stimulating than one of fish and starchy tubers.

If the Arawak was impatient of control, the Carib was even more
independent. The former would pine away and die under coercion, the
latter refused absolutely to be a slave. He would die fi